Dukes Are Forever

by Bec McMaster

  Greenwich slid off his sword, dead before he hit the ground.

  No mean feat, but Malloryn was a trifle vexed at the moment.

  The Rising Sons had swarmed out of nowhere.

  And somehow three of them stood between he and Devoncourt.

  "You and me," Devoncourt mouthed, and then winked.

  A sword came at him. Malloryn dodged and grabbed the newcomer's wrist, throwing him aside. He shoved forward, but there were too many other people between them. Damn it.

  He caught a glimpse of Devoncourt's blond hair as the Falcon vanished through a side door. Not today. He owed Devoncourt a bloody death. Malloryn kicked the Earl of Hargreaves in the face, and the blue blood slammed into three of his fellows, sending them toppling down the stairs.

  "After me," he said grimly, trying to catch his breath. It was getting harder and harder to breathe with all the smoke funneling up through the center of the tower.

  Charlie hauled him up short. "Look!"

  There were more Rising Sons on the stairs below them, clashing with a group of Coldrush Guards and Nighthawks, that appeared to be led by Barrons.

  Malloryn stripped the blood off his blade with his fingers and nodded his thanks to Barrons. As grateful as he was to have someone at his back, he couldn't help wondering if any of them were going to get out of here. The explosions had stopped—thank you, Gemma—but hot orange flames licked up the center of the tower. Barrons had a wife and a daughter and—

  Don't.

  Don't think about the what-if's.

  Focus on Balfour.

  "Where did Byrnes go?" Charlie demanded.

  Malloryn looked around. "He said 'Ingrid.'"

  "Do you think the ladies are in trouble?"

  He understood Charlie's worry.

  If Ingrid was in trouble, then it stood to reason that Lark and Adele faced the same peril. A whisper of dread slid through him.

  There was no point going after Devoncourt. Vengeance could wait. He had to make sure Adele and the other women were safe.

  "Hello, Malloryn," Balfour's voice said in his ear.

  Malloryn froze, pressing his fingers to the earpiece in horror. "Balfour?"

  The only way his nemesis could have gotten his hands on one of the communicators was to take down one of his agents.

  But who?

  "What the hell do you want?"

  "Your lovely wife would like to say something to you," Balfour murmured.

  "You're bluffing. You don't have Adele."

  He'd gotten her clear of this entire mess, hadn't he?

  Maybe it wasn't a communicator? Ava's transmitting device kept them on the airwaves, but there was no guarantee Balfour hadn't somehow manipulated the system. Perhaps he'd found the correct radio frequency—

  "Here, Adele. Tell your husband how much you love him."

  "Auvry?" came a tremulous voice.

  Her voice.

  The bottom of his stomach dropped. What had happened? How had Balfour gotten his hands on her?

  The seconds ticked out in time to his heartbeat.

  "Hello, Adele," he managed to say. The last thing he needed to do was panic. He couldn't betray his feelings right now. He couldn't. "Are you all right?"

  "He has a knife to my throat," Adele admitted, though he could hear the tremulous quiver in her voice.

  "Where are you?"

  Static whined in his ear.

  And then Balfour was back. "I'm where it all ended last time."

  "The throne room," he said, loudly and clearly, so anyone listening through Ava's communication device would hear him. "You're in the throne room."

  "You have five minutes to find me, or I'll cut her throat."

  Malloryn went cold.

  He'd cut her throat anyway.

  "If you hurt her in any way," his voice came out hard and cold, "then I will not simply kill you. I'll destroy you."

  But he knew Balfour.

  The bastard wouldn't hurt her until Malloryn was there to watch it happen.

  "Tick, tock, Malloryn."

  He had five minutes to rescue Adele.

  Heat seared the air as Malloryn fought his way through gusts of fire.

  Lark and the others had appeared just as he and Charlie cleared the stairs. He'd taken one look at Ingrid in Byrnes's arms and swallowed the hot lash of fury inside him. This was Balfour's doing. They'd done their best.

  "Get out of here," he'd said curtly. "Get to the rooftop and evacuate."

  And Ingrid must have been hurt badly, for Byrnes didn't bother to argue.

  Lark and Charlie exchanged a slow look.

  But they didn't follow him.

  Smoke nearly stole his breath as he climbed the stairs once again, the intensity of the heat drying his lips and skin. His eyes stung. Only long-time familiarity with this place allowed him to make his way toward the throne room.

  Balfour would be waiting for him there.

  He knew it.

  Shoving his way through the enormous double doors that led into the throne room, he found small respite from the updraft of smoke and flames that licked at the hollow core of the tower.

  He wasn't alone.

  Balfour turned to face him, his boots crunching on the broken glass that had fallen from the atrium roof. He had Adele's back against his chest, his knife held tight against her throat. Smoke poured up through the ceiling, leaving the room clear enough to see.

  They stared at each other for a long moment, Malloryn's pistol trained on Balfour's head.

  Then his gaze cut to Adele's, and it felt as though he lay splayed on an altar before Balfour, his chest cut open and his heart exposed for all the world to see. He'd never meant to let her in. He'd never meant to fall. But somehow, Adele had slipped beneath his guard when he least expected it.

  It was like reliving the past; Catherine begging for him to leave, and Balfour turning the pistol from Malloryn's chest to hers.

  This time it was Adele on the sacrificial altar.

  Not her. Please not her. He'd only just started to realize how much he loved her.

  "Hello, Malloryn."

  "Let her go."

  Balfour gave him a thin smile. "I don't think so. Put the pistol down."

  The second he did, she was dead.

  Malloryn's gaze focused through the sights of the pistol, narrowing between Balfour's eyebrows. Could he take the shot? All those years spent practicing for this moment, and suddenly he wondered if he was good enough.

  Not to kill Balfour, but to save her.

  "I'll kill her," Balfour warned, the knife tightening just enough to make Adele squeak. A thin trace of blood slid down her throat.

  "You'll kill her anyway." He saw Catherine overlaid on the scene. Her face begging him to rescue her.... But when he blinked, all he could see was Adele, and she begged for nothing. She believed, her eyes shining as she stared at him with utmost trust. "It's what you do. Just to prove you can."

  "Do it," Adele mouthed, and his hand stopped shaking as his resolve firmed.

  "Adele." He focused on Balfour's forehead. "Do you remember what Gemma taught you?"

  "Yes," she whispered, tensing.

  "Good."

  He took the shot.

  The bullet ricocheted as Balfour jerked to the side. Adele drove her palm up into Balfour's wrist, jarring the knife from her throat and stomping on his heel. Balfour tried to jerk her back in place, but she flung herself to the side and Balfour was forced to dive for cover.

  Malloryn strode forward, firing on Balfour with every step. Blood splashed on Balfour's shoulder, and then Malloryn clicked empty.

  He flung the pistol aside and scrambled to where Adele lay clutching at her throat. Blood dripped between her fingers, and his heart hammered, but when he looked at the wound, it was superficial. Thank God. Relief burst through him.

  "I'm fine," she gasped. "Go!"

  "Get to the roof," he told her.

  "Not without you."

  "You don't understand." He
didn't want to try and explain. Time was running out. The chance for either of them to escape this mess was rapidly narrowing. He could feel the building shuddering beneath his feet. The air was growing hotter, thicker.

  He couldn't let Balfour escape, but nor could he deny that if he stayed, his own chances faded.

  Adele lifted her chin stubbornly, her cheeks stained with soot and her eyes red-rimmed from the smoke. Dark bruises circled beneath her eyes, as if she'd taken a blow to the face. She'd never looked more beautiful. "I understand perfectly. Not. Without. You."

  Malloryn pressed his forehead to hers. To grant her this meant making a huge concession. But he had to accept, just this once, that he couldn't sway her. "Then stay out of this."

  "Go and kill him."

  Years of hate and fury turned into a cold, hard lump in his throat as Malloryn stood and faced his enemy. Endless games stretched out in the past, battles over the council table when the prince consort held power. Secrets. Lies. Espionage.

  And revenge.

  He'd thought once that seeing Balfour dead would finally ease the burden of debt from his shoulders, but it hadn't. There'd been a cold, hollow nothingness within him the day he helped cast the prince consort down and slit Balfour's throat. An emptiness he couldn't seem to slake in the years that followed.

  And then Balfour returned, and Malloryn had realized he'd spent so long striving to destroy this man that he was still trapped in that vicious spiral. It was almost a relief to start the game afresh. To know there was something to tilt his lance at.

  This man had ruined his life.

  But Malloryn had allowed it to happen.

  And worse, he'd allowed it to consume him.

  Until Adele had finally shown him a path clear of this bloody spiral. He didn't want to die here, with the promise of their relationship so newly unfurled before him. He wanted time, damn it. Time to explore it.

  Time to learn how to be Auvry again.

  "And so it ends," Balfour told him.

  "And so it ends," he replied, sliding the rapier at his side free of its sheath with a steely rasp.

  "You have been a thorn in my side for far too many years." Balfour drew his sword also. "I should have ended you the day I shot Catherine."

  "Then why didn't you?" He circled Balfour, knees flexing as he watched for the first sign of a lunge.

  "Because you were a pup. You'd been beaten, you just didn't know it. Power isn't about those you crush beneath your heel. It's about those you didn't crush when you could have."

  "A mistake on your behalf," he said coldly. "I am very, very good at surviving. You underestimated me then, and you underestimate me now."

  "I'll grant you this," Balfour conceded, "I did not expect the ruse with the queen. I didn't realize you'd be cold enough to set your own wife as bait in a trap for me."

  Malloryn breathed a laugh. "Then you don't know Adele. It wasn't my plan."

  "Ah."

  "You know me too well. As I know you. But you didn't account for her."

  "I didn't think you'd ever be able to cede control to those who surrounded you. I wouldn't have."

  "But I'm not you."

  Another smile. "You're more like me than you care to think. Even if you survive—even if you beat me here—you'll never escape me. I molded you into the man you are. In a way, you're the heir I never had."

  The words tasted like bile in Malloryn's mouth. "I am nothing like you. Maybe I could have been, but I have something you've never had. I have people that love me and keep me human. And Christ"—he shook his head with a breathless laugh—"they're infuriating and drive me insane, and disobey me, and...." He stared at Balfour as he realized the truth. "And yet, they risked their lives to come rescue me in Russia. They've risked their lives to help bring you down. And they're the reason I will win.

  "I'm nothing like you, Balfour. You've never seen the value in the people who serve you. You've never put their lives first, you've never cared. They've always been tools for you to use." He stepped forward, the tip of the sword in his hand rising. "All I ever wanted was to protect those I loved from you and your machinations."

  Balfour stepped back into a duelist's stance.

  "And so it comes to this, after all these years...." Balfour gestured with his sword, a faint smile on his thin lips. "Why don't we finish it?"

  Smoke clung to the ceiling, pouring through the open hole where the glass ceiling had been. "Neither of us is getting out of here."

  "Then we die together."

  Balfour suddenly lunged forward.

  Steel clashed on steel.

  They'd only ever dueled twice.

  The first had been a foolish clash when he'd been barely a man and Balfour had years of experience with a sword. All he'd wanted to do was avenge Catherine's death, but Balfour hadn't even had the decency to kill him. No. He'd earned a thrashing then—an abject exercise in humility—but he wasn't that young man anymore.

  He'd hired the finest sword masters. Spent hours perfecting his form.

  Learned hand-to-hand combat. Pugilism. Batitsu.

  Every hour he'd ever spent in the ring had been aimed at this moment.

  The second time had been a brief skirmish as the revolution raged against him and he'd cut Balfour's throat in a moment of distraction.

  Once again Balfour had the advantage, now that he'd metamorphosed into a dhampir. But Malloryn had spent months testing his reflexes against both Obsidian and Byrnes. He was as prepared as he was ever going to be.

  They drove together, steel ringing on steel. Firelight flashed off both blades like whips of lightning as they riposted and lunged, working through each other's defenses.

  Balfour's face showed strain when they broke apart.

  "You've spent too many years pulling puppet strings," Malloryn warned him. Whipping past Balfour in a lunge that caught the other off guard, he slashed his knife across the bastard's ribs and spun to face him.

  Balfour winced, pressing his fingers to his bloodied side. He looked up with a smile. "Your form's improved."

  "Thank you. Nothing like a good motivator to really inspire."

  "A pity it won't be enough."

  Balfour drove forward, and this time it was all Malloryn could do to keep the bastard off him. The tip of Balfour's rapier flicked across his arm, leaving a burning lash in its wake. And then it was under his guard again, skewering through his side.

  Malloryn gritted his teeth and fell back.

  "That's just a taste of what is to come."

  Back and forth they went, his eyes stinging from the smoke. It was growing thicker in here, and he could hear Adele coughing. Having her here distracted him, but he couldn't do anything about it.

  "Where are your precious Rogues now?" Balfour sneered as he scored another slash along Malloryn's shoulder.

  Safe. Hopefully safe.

  "Your precious Gemma and her lover? Your pair of thieves? Your mech and his wife? And the verwulfen bitch and her lover? Have they left you here to die?"

  No. I made them go, so they would not.

  He ignored the taunt as Balfour suddenly intensified his attack. Behind Balfour, he could see a shadowy figure emerge from behind a tapestry that hung on the walls; a secret passage only he was aware of. Relief burst through him as he recognized the familiar mask.

  "Watch out!" Adele cried.

  A pistol suddenly echoed behind him.

  Heat burst through his right shoulder, a shooting numbness jolting down his arm. Grinding his teeth together, he tried to hold Balfour's sword at bay with both hands on the hilt of his own rapier, but it felt as though someone was slowly sliding a hot poker through his upper back.

  He went down on one knee, his arm giving way beneath Balfour's pressure. Behind him he could hear Adele grunting with exertion.

  "You son of a bitch."

  A quick glance showed a familiar figure wrestling with Adele, his pistol still smoking. Fucking Devoncourt.

  "Always have an ace up your sl
eeve," Balfour told him, almost fondly. "You should have learned that lesson by now."

  Then a knee was driving toward his face.

  Pain burst through Malloryn, and he slammed onto the marble tiles, sliding back several paces.

  Balfour drove his sword down, but Malloryn managed to parry it. And again. He kicked out, aiming for Balfour's knee even as his nose throbbed. Broken, possibly.

  "I did," he managed to grind out as he rolled onto his knees. Behind him, Adele went sprawling as Devoncourt threw her aside.

  Balfour paused. "Pardon?"

  Malloryn slowly pushed to his feet. "I said, I did learn that lesson. You weren't the only one who brought a friend. You missed one of my Rogues."

  Balfour stilled.

  Behind him, the pistol lifted.

  Devoncourt didn't even see his death coming.

  There was a swift retort and then a dart stuck out of his chest.

  The false earl looked down in shock, plucking at the dart, but it was too late.

  "A taste of your own concoction," Malloryn sneered as Adele escaped the earl.

  Balfour snarled as he spun toward Malloryn's last ace.

  And then he froze.

  "Hello, Father," Jack rasped, his facemask strapped into place and his green eyes glittering mercilessly as he took a threatening step forward.

  It had been an agreement Malloryn had conceded weeks ago. He's mine, Jack had claimed.

  Balfour seemed taken aback. "You shouldn't be here."

  If there was anyone in the entire company who deserved revenge more than Malloryn, it was Jack. Balfour had twisted him to his use as a child, molded him, and then shunned him when his sister, Rosalind, proved the more dangerous.

  And then he'd punished Jack for Rosalind's betrayal.

  "You and I have unfinished business," Jack replied. Then he pulled the trigger on his dart-gun.

  The dart slammed into Balfour's chest, but it only quivered there, stuck by its point.

  Something was wrong.

  Balfour smiled at the pair of them, and then yanked it out. "Did you think I didn't come prepared for Black Vein?"

  He rapped his knuckles on his chest, and the sound echoed hollowly. No wonder all of Malloryn's strikes had skittered harmlessly off him.